Free Republic

LightSquared doubles size of its lobbying team in 2011By Rachel Leven and Kevin Bogardus 09/27/11 06:00 AM ET LightSquared, the wireless telecom firm facing Republican complaints that it has benefited from political ties to the White House, has significantly boosted its lobbying this year. The company has more than doubled the number of lobbying firms on its payroll, from four to nine K Street shops, in the first half of 2011. LightSquared has already spent $830,000 on lobbying in the first six months of year, and is on pace to more than double its K Street expenditures of $695,000 in...

Madison - The top four spenders on lobbying the Legislature during the first half of 2011 were labor unions fighting against Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to curb collective bargaining, a report released Thursday showed. The four unions spent $6.3 million in the first six months of the year, the Government Accountability Board reported. Walker introduced his plan in February and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed it in March. The unions helped organize rallies at the Capitol in protest over the bill that grew as large as 100,000 people. The debate, which captured the nation's attention, also spurred Democratic senators to leave...

When congressional leaders earlier this month named six lawmakers from each party to a debt reduction “supercommittee,” investing unprecedented power in a tiny cadre to slash funding, they set off a wild scramble among special interest groups to gain access and protect their interests. Yet many groups with the most at stake didn’t have to change their plans. Some members of the supercommittee received more campaign contributions in July from political action committees controlled by corporations, unions and other lawmakers than anyone else in Congress, disclosures filed this weekend show. Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican who chairs the tax-writing House...

Rep. Xavier Becerra — or, to be more precise, lobbyists working on his behalf — wasted no time Thursday capitalizing on the California congressman’s appointment to the congressional super committee. A little over two hours after Becerra was named to the powerful panel, Investment Company Institute’s Jim Hart sent out an email encouraging attendance for the trade group’s upcoming $1,500 per person fundraiser based on Becerra’s new found status as one of the elite 12. “We will host an event for Congressman Xavier Becerra, not only Vice Chairman of the Democratic Caucus but also who has just been named to...

Full headline: American Traffic Solutions -- red-light camera vendor for Houston, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving and Amarillo --- suspends exec for posting pro-camera comments under fake identity -- As far as anyone can tell, American Traffic Solutions Inc. has resorted only to the conventional lobbying method of throwing money around to grow its red-light camera business in Texas. Until last week, at least one business development executive was making inroads in Washington state by cheerleading for the company and personally attacking opponents under an assumed name in dozens of comments left on the website of a local newspaper, according to...

The Hill reported on Sunday that the U.S.-designated terrorist group the Mujahedin e Khalq (aka the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, aka the National Council of Resistance) has acquired lobbying help from Democratic powerhouse Akin Gump to support its removal from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list. To be fair to Akin Gump, plenty of GOPers have taken up cudgels for the MEK, though the direct cash payoff to them is less clear. The MEK has for years lobbied aggressively via a myriad of front groups to be taken off the terrorism list. Shrewd lobbyists, they have moved well beyond...

The silence is deafening. While the rest of the nation is heading back toward a double dip, Washington continues to obsess about future budget deficits. Why? Republicans don’t want to do anything about jobs and wages. They’re so intent on unseating Obama they’d like the economy to remain in the dumps through Election Day. They also see the lousy economy as an opportunity to sell Americans their big lie that government spending is the culprit — and jobs will return if spending is cut and government shrinks. Democrats, meanwhile, don’t want to admit the recovery has stalled. They worry such...

At the same time Tiffany & Co. was extending Callista (Bisek) Gingrich a virtual interest-free loan of tens of thousands of dollars, the diamond and silverware firm was spending big bucks to influence mining policy in Congress and in agencies over which the House Agriculture Committee–where she worked–had jurisdiction, official records show…

I love teachers. I really do. And I'm sure that most are overworked and underpaid. Certainly, no one is getting rich from teaching kids. I applaud the hardworking teachers across this land. But, as has happened in Wisconsin, when teachers unions muscle legislators like the Mafia and Democrats abandon their voting posts because they don't like projected outcomes, haven't we abandoned the very foundational principles of our republic? Where were the "be civil" mainstream media police last Friday morning, when union demonstrators screamed at legislators on the floor of the Wisconsin Assembly while they voted? More proof of union dominance...

Numerous times this year, members of Congress have held fundraisers and collected big checks while they are taking critical steps to write new laws, despite warnings that such actions could create ethics problems. The campaign donations often came from contributors with major stakes riding on the lawmakers' actions. ....Earlier this month, the chairman of the Senate committee overseeing tax policy, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), gave himself a birthday-party fundraiser - on the same day that the chamber took its first vote on an $858 billion tax package that would provide breaks to wealthy citizens and business interests. ....Over the course...

December 14, 2010 12:00 A.M. The Ethanol Idiocy that Will Not Die Bipartisan common sense is no match for the inertia of a government subsidy. When Al Gore drops an environmental fad, it has truly reached its expiration date. In his wisdom, the Goracle recently acknowledged what almost all disinterested observers concluded long ago: Ethanol is a fraud. It has no environmental benefits, and harmful side effects. The subsidies that support its use are an object lesson in the incorrigibility of Washington’s gross special-interest politics. It is the monster that ate America’s corn crop.

TSA’s other body-scanner contractor is Rapiscan Systems Inc. In 2009, the company was awarded an agreement that could be worth up to $173 million. And like L-3, Rapiscan has a notable K Street presence. Holland & Knight, Rapiscan’s outside lobbying firm, has earned $480,000 in fees from the company since May 2008, according to lobbying disclosure records. David Whitestone, a former aide to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), and John Buscher, once the chief lobbyist for United Airlines, are lobbying for the company. Overall, Rapiscan has spent close to $3.6 million on lobbying since 2007, according to records.

You might think that a prominent veterans organization like the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) would actually reserve its political endorsements for, you know, veterans, or at least those politicians that actually demonstrate some level of respect for the military. But you would be wrong. And the problem is not just the VFW; rather, the VFW’s current lobbyist-driven fiasco simply serves to illustrate how out-of-touch the Washington in-crowd is with the feelings of us benighted souls dwelling outside the beltway. In the Florida 22nd Congressional District race, incumbent Democrat Ron Klien is running against Republican challenger Allen West. Actually, he’s...

Illustrating that a promise made is not necessarily a promise kept, this administration is again under fire for violating its own ethics pledges. On the campaign trail, candidate Obama initially pledged not to hire former lobbyists. But once in office, that directive was “clarified” to mean that any lobbyists hired would not be given the opportunity to influence any decisions involving their former employers. Now, that promise, too, has gone by the wayside with the disclosure that White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin has directly participated in formulating policies that would impact Google, where McLaughlin had formerly served...

Sen. Orrin Hatch's decision to oppose Elena Kagan for a seat on the Supreme Court probably wasn't made in fear of the National Rifle Association's threat to senators that the group will take their votes on the nominee into consideration during endorsement time this election season. Hatch already has an A+ rating from the gun group. But the moves by both parties -- Hatch's Friday announcement that he will vote "no" on Kagan and the NRA's Thursday announcement that it opposes Kagan and senators who vote for her risk their wrath -- are aimed at least in part at...

PHOENIX (AP) - John McCain's re-election campaign is releasing its second set of television and radio ads attacking the Arizona's senator's primary opponent for his ties to Washington. The ads point out that former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth registered as a lobbyist in 2008, a year after he lost his re-election bid. Hayworth is challenging McCain in the Republican primary and casting himself as a conservative Washington outsider. But the ads challenge that image, with a narrator saying: "Outsider? A lobbyist is as inside Washington as it gets."

I am fondly recalling those hoary days on the campaign trail when Mr. Obama was all about "transparency," and when he promised to have the "strictest ethics rules" of any president evah! Seemingly hours later the president's office began to waive hose "strictest" rules to allow his favorite lobbyists and lawyers to take up residence in his administration. By Feb. 2, for instance, a dozen high profile lobbyists had already had those "strict" rules waived for them to join the administration. And by May of 2009, Obama had already lifted his so-called ban on lobbyists joining his administration. And this...

Lawsuit Seeks to Protect Americans’ Right To Most-Basic Political Speech: Talking to Their Neighbors WEB RELEASE: April 15, 2010 Seattle, Wash.—Washingtonians from both sides of the political spectrum filed a lawsuit today to stop their state from monitoring, collecting and publicly disseminating information about the political activities of private citizens who do nothing more than urge their fellow citizens to take political action. They seek to vindicate the belief that if the First Amendment protects anything, it protects the right of all Americans to speak to one another about the issues affecting their lives without having to first register with...

On March 31, 2010, the SEIU filed their LM-2 forms required by Federal law. In the quest to provide transparency of what the SEIU is doing, some startling revelations have been made since the documents have come to light. Specifically, recent information disclosed in the LM-2 forms filed begs to question about the President of that organization's status as a lobbyist. Is Andy Stern a lobbyist, and if not, what is he then? According to the dictionary of Merriam-Webster, a lobbyist is a person that conducts "activities aimed at influencing public officials and especially members of a legislative body on...

K Street appears to have cashed in on the lengthy battle over healthcare reform. About 1,750 businesses and organizations spent at least $1.2 billion in 2009 to lobby on health reform and other issues, according to a study from the Center for Public Integrity released Friday. A precise figure isn’t available because lobbying disclosure forms don’t require companies or other groups to itemize how much they spend to lobby on a particular issue. The largest lobbying firm in terms of revenue, Patton Boggs, set the pace in healthcare lobbying too, according to the Center. Fifty-three clients paid Patton Boggs $7.68...